


Old Friend

by charcoalsuns



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Mentions of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is one Arthur will not lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Friend

Arthur stares through the pyre as it crackles and smolders, sending masses of smoke trailing away from camp. Trees surround the clearing with stark, skeletal branches, thin arms groping into thinner air, ends tapering into icicles that beckon like crude fingers. It’s too cold to smell the remains of charred flesh, too still to ignore the bones snapping in surrender. It’s too soon after the last guard had fallen and passed watch to the night. Arthur hides the grief from his face, pushes it past clenched teeth and hangs it on a heavy strand of guilt inside his chest, but he knows Merlin catches it anyway, taking it in his fingertips, trying to pull Arthur around to look at him instead.

A hand rises haltingly at the edge of Arthur’s vision, reaching. It pauses, inches from gripping his shoulder, changes its mind, and retreats, staying solemnly at Merlin’s side. Arthur wishes it didn't. He feels Merlin’s presence beside him, sparking in the suffocating clearing, and Arthur wants nothing more than to touch, to move close enough to wrap himself in Merlin’s warmth.

Merlin looks back steadily when Arthur faces him. His lips are pressed together against the cold, or against the concern Arthur doesn't want to accept. Red blotches his cheeks and ears and the end of his nose, color bright and reassuring, but Arthur can’t stop himself from imagining the worst: finding Merlin’s body collapsed in the snow, eyes frozen shut, skin lifeless grey, and how it would feel to stand vigil before Merlin’s ashes while Arthur’s breath ghosts the empty air. Denial pierces his gut, and Arthur turns away.

  


\--

  


Arthur’s brow wrinkles under his hand, matching another furrow in the worn parchment in front of him. Inked kingdoms stare impassively back, and no matter how resolutely Arthur sits in faltering candlelight, he fails to discover an unmarked valley, an unclaimed territory to where his knights have disappeared. His guilt thickens with frustration, dragging down, choking on every day they find nothing. No trampled paths through the wild brush, no signs of the ambush that must have occurred, not one errant strand of thread tangled in a single conveniently jostled plant. Every day, the probability— No. They are not pushing forward in pursuit of dead men.

Arthur glances across the tent to the pile of woolen blankets that conceals Merlin from view. Desperation coils its phantom fingers through his ribs, squeezing until his lungs are distorted and struggling under the pressure. Arthur remembers all too clearly the days Merlin was missing, the nights he couldn't sleep, spent scouring maps with a bloodied scrap of brown beside his hand and panic feeding his restless body. Now, Merlin’s breaths whisper into the quiet. Arthur will not suffer their loss again.

  


\--

  


Early morning pushes its chill into the tent, seeping under translucent, dirt-stained flaps and biting at Arthur’s exposed skin. He feels all the colder for the distance away Merlin stands, quilted shirt an abandoned heap on a chair, waiting, apparently, for a clearer signal than Arthur’s outstretched arms and raised eyebrow.

Merlin’s eyes are alert, looking out past the shadows bruising his face, so Arthur doesn't think he’s drifted off into blurry exhaustion, but Merlin makes no indication that he intends to help Arthur dress.

He only looks. Merlin only watches, open and perceptive in the way that still starts nerves echoing down Arthur’s spine, and Arthur’s skin prickles, hairs shifting on his forearms and the back of his neck, his chest and fingers itching, unsettled. His reprimand dissipates on his tongue, its hard shell melting into a tiny familiar sea of anticipation that tastes of the determined crease high on Merlin’s nose and the decisiveness in his gaze. Arthur waits for Merlin to speak.

The ground crunches faintly under Merlin’s advancing steps, but Arthur feels the air around him thaw when Merlin stops an arm’s length away, face set, thoughts tumbling into order behind his teeth.

“We’ll find them, Arthur.” Merlin’s voice is low and rough, burning with certainty that doesn't seem to fade. “We will.”

It’s not a promise, Arthur knows. It cannot be, not when their weeks lash callously past in brutal winds and bleak, hollow paths. But spoken by Merlin, the words are as good as sworn.

Merlin reaches a steady arm into the stillness between them, and Arthur clasps it tight, fingers gripping in answer just below Merlin’s elbow, trying to send his gratitude coursing straight through Merlin’s veins where Merlin could truly know its depth. He imagines a reply beating soft and strong against his wrist, but there are layers of fabric separating their skin, and Arthur can no more feel Merlin’s pulse than he can touch the glint in Merlin’s eyes.

Arthur steps forward instead, throws his other arm around Merlin’s shoulders, pulls himself nose-first into Merlin’s neck. He lets go of Merlin’s forearm and rushes empty fingers across Merlin’s back to clutch at his waist, anchoring himself close with no desire to move away. For a moment, Arthur wonders at Merlin’s lack of reaction. But Merlin sighs, sudden and sharp, then all at once he’s mirroring Arthur’s embrace, hands firm along Arthur’s side and tightening in his hair, pulling Arthur closer, and Arthur cannot tell where the pounding against his chest is coming from. Maybe his own heart, thudding faster at the feel of Merlin shaking and solid and in his arms. Or maybe, Arthur thinks, pressing his mouth to the thrum below Merlin’s jaw, he can feel Merlin spreading warmth over his skin after all.

They will need to move on soon. The distant sun lights their search in shorter and shorter days, and thick, heavy clouds relentlessly threaten to descend upon them. His throat is still dry, body still aching, worry and responsibility carrying the further weight of fears he cannot voice. But Merlin is here with him, and his head tilts toward Arthur like he can hear all of it anyway. Arthur’s heart steadies at the thought. Merlin breathes softly into Arthur’s hair, his arms never loosening, and Arthur holds on.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and scenes reference and borrow from episodes 4.02 (The Darkest Hour), 4.05 (His Father's Son), 4.06 (A Servant of Two Masters), 5.01 (Arthur's Bane), and 5.06 (The Dark Tower), though this doesn't quite fit specifically into the canon timeline.


End file.
